that it a couple of years after that the second part that is the history from 65 from the black panthers and the nationalism. . .

live coverage of the "los angeles times" festival of books and we will begin with an author panel on the environment. [inaudible] [applause] i am so thrilled to be able to have three wonderful guests we have here to discuss a very important topic environment surviving the future. i will tell you about each of them starting to my far left, lee van der voo is an independent journalist based in my favorite city in the plan of portland oregon and also the author of the fish market inside

the big-money battle for the ocean and your dinner plate. sitting next to her everyonenn hold your applause until the end come in the middle is miriam horn, "the new york times" best selling sequel at the environmental defense fund and lived in new york city her latest title last but not least my left journalist and community-based activists in richmond california the author of three previous books like the la times, "boston globe," usa today, the progressive and many more and also helped initiate labor for the progressive alliance which is one ofat america's most successful reform organizations and the latest book is titled refinery town, big oil, big money and the making of an american city.

now a big round of applause. [applause] when it comes to the environment, why books so many of us get our news and information in tv spots, radio spots, twitter, facebook. why are these important in this day in age? >> i'm blown away by the scale of the event and choosing this particular item on the booken festival and for coming out. i've done three previous books but have never been to a book festival before. more than 100,000 people would come to a weekend of the bookk g

chat and grappling with the issues that authors of various types raise i think vindicates my own personal decision with the help. so i salute you and all of the book readers that are here. i think certain topics, certainly the complex issues involving race and class, environmental justice, community safety, economic injustice that i try to deal with in refinery town are not easily addressed so i'm sticking with the book format for the time being. >> w >> we still have to mention your book with the different sources addressing different environmental issues. what is the importance in 2017?

>> what i set out to do in the book is try to move beyond thee simplistic and ideological ways that the issue is get engaged. my book is about red state conservationists. i wanted to reach audiences on the last two to dispel the myth that the only good approach to food production is small and local and organic. i wanted to speak to the ride and remind them how the conservations surrounded the country and how deeply conservative the values are and i want to give honor to these characters.

the only way to do that try to do it through the heated language and anecdote and reinforces the divide to bridge the divide about the scientific complexities, all the trade-offs like the kansas farmer is facing up to and trying to balance, so getting deep enough into the science and into these families and their values to help peoplee understand their commitments. >> i feel like i could drop by one of these people's house. what about you, you can just

pretty early on you or not planning on writing a book necessarily.to the article writer for 18 years and we somewhat followed the discussion about the nation's approach to the sustainable seafood and policymaking. after being at the topic on the contract for the magazines and the patterson foundation for a couple of years i just felt that the story was much deeper than we were seeing in the general media and i wanted to be able to tell it with richness and fairness. >> everyone here today has a

very personal connection to their story and i would like to help reveal that for every one here today and stick with you and have you read a passage. maybe you can share your passags with us. >> i did lose a bet in the bar and that is how i approach thelo first set of articles. i had done a piece about salmon fishing in oregon where i live and i was in a bar complaining about how i would never do it again but i didn't think people were interested in the topics and a friend of mine actually bet on the spot that he could get me to do it. so hiding behind the jargon

wasn't new. by then organics were 25 billion other industry in the united states and one in which the fair trade and the conscious brandsst were garnering the premium on the do no harm he does. the consumers that they didn't want their eggs laid by caged chicken i was already covering an enormous number of themous. product schemes and it seemed like a reasonable venue. you were one of the few people able to buy a house into california these days certainly it is no seat in north carolina

and not long after that a little incident happened. i can show some of the people what happened. you have to be careful about who the industrial neighbors are when you look at the certain communities in california including richmond california. how many people have been to richmond? we have a former richmond residents to my right to at the graduate school years at uc berkeley and miriam horn is a graduate of kennedy high school, a high -- hard-core. this is what it looks like on a bad hair day like in august, 2012. when du when due to the company's long-standing practice of

putting this ahead of the worker safety and environmental healthe community safety it was a major plume of toxic smoke covering the other cities. 15,000 refinery neighbors were sent scrambling for medical assistance and every emergency room and clinic in the area. the company had a plea for the various civil and criminal p penalties and was assessed the largest fine in the history of the state. the city is suing them over this with a damaging impact on property including the value of the property of people that recently moved into richmond, and it got me thinking about the history of big oil and its relationship to the community,o the labor, history struggles and the last ten or 15 years were the people of the community have risen up to challenge big oil.

>> can you share where your wife was when this happened because this is something really personal. >> she was out in the garden and i am not sure that everybody here is necessarily familiar. the public safety protocol if you grew up in the 1950s living under the shadow you probably did a few drills in elementary school and crouched under your desk. shelter in place is what you're supposed to do in the same scale of effectiveness when we have a fossil fuel catastrophe liken te this. you go into the house and you tape your doors and windows. my wife was out in the garden and didn't know the protocol and was told by a neighbor get in the house. that lasted about five minutes, we drummed in the car and racedd off to berkeley. >> likewise, you had a very personal connection tha but i fl like it is a little less than

the shelter in place. i have to say when i first read about your book, the thoughts that went through my mind is what is a nice girl in new york city doing spending all this time along the mississippi river, which kind of connects all the stories. i think the passage you selected illustrates the importance. if you want to read that? >> speed to >> let's start with the passage because it gives a sense of how important it is. >> the book is a journey down the mississippi watershed in the third largest river in the world.t it drains almost half the united states and it's been absolutely critical for the american history and natural history. california has a natural resource the watershed really holds the vast majority of ourrs mineral wells and food files.

so i was interested in it for all of those reasons but also with matched perfectly onto the red state america and because i have come to know that the people who work these landscapes were playing a critical role in their destiny. so, america depends on these grand working landscapes and intend on a small number of people. the families who live by harvesting their bounty. farmers and ranchers make up 1% of the population but managed two thirds of the nation's land. agriculture has greater impact on water, land and biodiversity than any other human enterprise. that is true everywhere makingg region a model for the world. half of the land is in cost debate copastor or farms. it covers an area the size of south america and livestock as

big as africa. together they use 70% of all freshwater.hw this would have been equally enormous impact harvesting 90 million metric tons of fish annually. the equivalent to pulling the human weight of china out of the sea every year. as the landscapes grow increasingly precarious, threatened by invasive species,, development, ill-conceived feats of engineering and extreme weather it is the families who run the tractors and barges and fishing boats that are stepping up to save them. there is are the most consequential efforts to restore the grasslands, wildlife, rivers, wetlands and fisheries. the bounty that shaped the national character and sustains our way of life. >> and the personal connection. >> having grown-up in

california, i spent as much as my childhood as i could on a farm west of davis was an incredibly farsighted farming family farming of large scale about 5,000 acres but were already this was in the 60s and 70s, already lookingeady forward to anticipating the struggles of california was going to face in terms of more extreme weather and water challenges and they were aware of the impact that everythingat they did add and so they were kind of my first teachers on f these complex trade-offs and thinking across space and time and laying those trade-offs. then in my 20s i dropped out of college and worked for the forest service in colorado and e had a similar experience in this case with ranchers and miners

coming to appreciate the depth of knowledge and love and commitment of the people who live and work on the landscapes bring to the task. >> does anyone here remember the old sesame street this is brought to you by the letter, i would say this panel is brought to you by the letter p. because each one brings a particular lens. for steve, it was a place, the place of richmond and that is the focus of the book and the story is tol that is told to the individuals that she met alongis the way and your letter is a practice that is important for people. i would just love to see a quick raise of hands how many people here have eaten fish of someany variety? now we will do a follow-up question and it is okay if the answer is no.

how many of you feel like you have a very strong understanding of where that came from and how it was caught? >> okay with that in mind i think that you will hear what he has to say. you wrote a whole book about it but in layman's terms what is the policy and practice that you write about? >> the united states sets limits on how much can come out of the water on any given year and them fish we catch and eat today we want them to be there a year from now, 20 years from now. how the captives and forced we canterbury. a catcher is one of those toolsn and how it works is essentially taking all the fish that can bel caught in a given year and giving and ownership to the various pieces to boats, sometimes corporations, whatever

the particular structure is in the region for that particularl. fish. it's if you give peopl people pe ithestate and ownership, they wl take care of it. they will have an interest in conservation because theva long-term gain will also be theirs. it is a little bit of a gamble. it's like giving 100 people houses and the thing that everyone is going to cut their grass. you don't know. ownership means different things to different people. at the effectiveness has been a mixed. lots of people that are orders of the system became good stewards and they are the folks that are bringing us the products that we have today and they are innovating the chain so that's maybe more people the next time the question comes around where did your fish come from they will be able to raise their hand. but many folks did opt to become landlords in the system.

they rent the right to go fishing. they don't fish anymore and that makes it tough for a young fisherman to climb in the system. it's a little like trying to buy that house from a landlord that can raise the rent on you. it's difficult. so, that if corporations and equity groups become the nextbee logical owners of the shares to go fishing. that is upsetting the small business tradition that has been the foundation of fishing in the coastal communities for manyr years. lee, >> your book is very much about people coming and you get a sense of what they are up against. there are so many seafaring characters but they are.

they really are. can you tell us about one of the people in your book that began to make you question is this the best policy we could come up with? >> one of the most experience to leathese two interesting experiences that i had i spent i think three or four days on the vessel with the captain and cr crew, he is very interesting to hang around with. but the dynamics of that particular fishery is that the ownership rights have becomeled controlled over years and years of folks that don't fish anymo anymore.en alaska put some words on some of the programs years ago with the

intent of aging out of the system and what's happened is it's become almost like a retirement package. so you have to be on the boat in order for your fish to be caug caught. in the beginning of the season they mail out flyers to entice folks to come on their boat and they would do things like say f come onto my boat i have a dvd collection you can watch while i'm fishing. i will give you quality drugs, i have a stateroom and washer and. dryer. i spent a few days on the boat while the landlord essentially

ugot 65% of the value and spenta lot of time reading. he was a nice guy that came out and helped periodically but those relationships don't always look like that.th there is another person on the vessel that isn't working. >> you have some fascinating characters but also real people. i will give you free choice because there are so many togive choose from but can you tellyo about one of the people that you encountered because i imagine you could have profiled any number of folks i'm just curious

how you choseasset >> another answer to the question is an opportunity to show the interdependency for it begins with the mississippi with a former radio champion, fourth-generation. he was flying all over and seeing what happened to boats turned into suburban sprawl. understanding this landscape that he lived in was rich in

wildlife so he saved the branches and defend the public branch that was in tha the kindr amorphous position. it also gives swedish ancestor changed his way of farming and we can talk about that later. i then go on to the mississippi with a barge company and thethe intercoastal curnow so seeing the impacts jeopardizing hisop mariners and stepped up to lead from the business community for the efforts to restore the wetlands that provided this protective role.is the

we had at the advocate for the vulnerable community that is on the leading edge of the vulnerability has the perfect landscape evolved into the gulf. then i end up with a red snapper fisherman. we have different views than i am with a fisherman out in the gulf of mexico who was actually instrumental in terms of seeing that fishery. they were encrypted, saying. employment has gone up.

i want to go back to the creationist christian.em that it told them that they could do whatever they wanted to do and then there were others that saw it in a different way. >> dusty talks about what he calls the drill and kill it crowd. the neighbors t that do" this ia of dominion.

it goes back many generations and his du he sees the approachs as emulating, the kind of harmony that existed so that translates to working with

nature in this incredible way, those that do critical things t for the crops so again it is a sense of responsibility to creation for this gift that we have been given and also its restoration farming to restore some things that have been badly broken. i feel like we silo issues and think of the environment of the economy as a separate issue and

health care as a separate issue. it may not seem like environmental issues. can you talk about how theseyo things come together in the story of richmond? >> how many are here because you belong to or support a group?i a building the blue-greeninging p alliances.

when you are an electedos representatives that is dependent on the transportation use in some form. it was the chevron safety practice that lead to this disaster and 2012 and a sister band wathat was conducted in the chemical safety board and workplace safety regulation.

one of the ways that they rallied environmentalists to their side is the new framing that resonated with refinery neighbors and the people in the broad community contracting out leads to unsafe maintenance practices and they demanded better staffing and limits on forced overtime and they are often a force that could work 14, 16, sometimes 18 hours ae. day. they demand safe works with the processing unit type springs a leak it is to shut down and workers refuse to respond to the scene of the accident until they can make repairs safely. these kind of issues resonated in the environmental community. during a seven week strike, twoo

years ago this winter who was on the picket line supporting his brothers and sisters, communities for better environment and i think we have to find ways to bridge the blue-green divide and create alliances that challenge both corporate power when it has an adverse reaction on the environment and the local and federal level when they think t the answer with workplace safety and community health visit deregulation. >> another alliance happened in richmond that i found fascinating and if that happened witthat happenedwith people liv.

can you explain how that came to be? >> there was the record of drilling for oil in the rainforest section of ecuador and they had been involved in the litigation against chevron for billions in damages and they spent hundreds of millions of dollars litigating the case but surprisingly they established a strong cross-border relationship against big oil. lots of cities have relationships as i point out we

have a sister country, ecuador. >> i do not want to go into a debate about the share but i would like to hear from each of you because these environmental issues and debates are not black-and-white. you can talk to one person you admire and respect and then you talk to someone on the opposite side and at the end it seems each of you has come to a certain conclusion. >> intelligent people disagree about the issues all the time.

as mentioned a moment ago, we agree about quite a few things with the environmental policy i want to go back a minute and say i do think that the methods of assigning due in prove and increased the amount. i simply disagre disagree whethe should be private property rights getting there. i think we can accomplish most without that. but to answer the question of how to sort through it, i am an independent journalist and i came to this as i do most things. i spent five years going to the catcher market all-around of the

united states have been to every federal catcher in the country, i've walked the dogs and talk to keep beaufort years. i didn't come to this with any particular point of view and after the first story seeing them rent themselves out in this manner i pushed myself to spend time with the creators at the fishing brand and i think i cami away with the view that this is so great to being a close policy and it's been compromised a

little bit by the push on the property rights and that the programs and policies have been tied but i come to it from thinking and spending time. >> how do you go through the different sides and if i could show everyone here who may not have the opportunity to spend months and years seeing people talking and see the world the same way we do. those issues really resonate with people that i wan but i way more about capture because i guess i worked there for 13 years and as you will discover

if you read the book and i hope you will, they've been a prime mover in the policy shift and we don't actually consider these private property rights and we do have a history in this country of harvesting our public resources by giving individuals access rights and then managing them as a way to control them. we do it across for most every public resource you can think of. the whole reason for being on this i would recommend you go to the fisheries solution website which is an archive of hundreds of thousands of studies which is

demonstrating how effective these have been for the fishing communities and tackling the legitimate concerns for things like equity and a lot of the shares are not owned by individuals but those in california so you don't end up with anything that resembles an individual property rights and some places they've been effective at undoing the worst talks going on before the talks are buying up the resource. it had gotten so bad it was

declared a disaster area. when it was put in place it put a cap on how much any entity could own. if that actually ended up breaking up the huge corporate ownership. politics comes into every decision that we make as a democracy and our view is you diovan and you fight as hard as you can to design ways that are protective of the fish and the people. that is the theme in all of this there is no perfect way to farm or fish or any of these things, it is a constant work in

progress and what you admire most about the heroes as they are as open to being challenged him to return as anyone i ever met whether it is a pesticide or anything he is doing they woulds engage for weeks and months. the willingness to keep making things better is critical. >> we've all turned ovewe will e q-and-a. i want to ask you because your book is the only one that is 100%. we were talking about real

estate and there was a gas leak and some concerns about the environment. you would think people would want to buy houses in that area, think again. i would like to hear from you because it sounds what does a similar situation happening. you would think folks might shy away from it and it bears the real estate. >> richmond as recently as 15 or 20 years ago was referred to by snotty neighbors as the armpit. [laughter] but today it is a progressive city. how did that happen and how did

it become a magnet for people fleeing affordable housing prices in places like san francisco and oakland and berkeley it happened because people went local in politics. they didn't wait for state government or the outcome good or bad. they decided their city was going to be cleaner and greener and more equitable they would have to organize locally. they started running for office since 2004 they have ten out of 16 for the city council. the multiracial working class movement now has five out of seven on the city council. last fall richmond became one with rent control and we nowth

have the requirement for the tenets can be evicted. this is a great moment of despair with concern of what's going on in the beltway in the state capitals but there are tremendous opportunities to organize and transform and richmond was long known for its disruption and of course chevron the last ten or 15 years in challenging circumstances that come together and made their city a place people want to live to. >> no longer an armpit.

>> the story really resignation. >> if you have a question, raise your hand and we have folks with a microphone and that they will come your way. a reminder make sure that your question is a question and which panelists it is supposed to. i would just like for you to show your book. >> okay you twisted my arm. [laughter] and it is now a documentary film. we premiered at sundance and we will be on discovery in august. [applause] one of my favorite books mentioned the fisheries off the coast of boston.

have you dealt with that? >> i know about them. i don't spend a tremendousbut amount of time in the book was not. it is in a program now. i think there's more happening there then fishing. also i think there's some environmental issues. some may have been continued over.

you will get a lot of imports which is there are still some polks fishing in the hook andd line fishery that are able to bring to market that right now it's hard to find. >> we have the next question right here. the sort of people that should be concerned about climate

change and a sort of identity politics and the way that they self identify it seems like they don't.ou did you encounter these type of folks when you were researching the book? >> the thing i thought most about how to navigate, and i started with a policy when i would go out of my first meetings i would never be the first to talk about climate change. i would let them choose the vocabulary because i didn't ever want doors to close.re

for instance, when i first met him four years ago, he wasshowi showing me the alfalfa roots. he said if the weather patterns are getting more extreme than this will be helpful. their legislators don't use those words, they talk about the aquifer. they would talk about the reality is farmers have to deal

with and we would become resilient. it's a startling example of the shift i was watching was. i was watching the shift happen and i think often it jumped off the book.

and the internet where you can chew off whatever you want, i believe that it was in the chapter where you talk about a group that would be the first to admit we see things in a different way that they were able to be civil with each other because they personally knew each other which i thought was e healthy reminder. >> it goes back to the question of why we need to get away from this approach because the first time he came to new york i was so moved he and his wife came out to say we feel like we were actually honored. most people don't feel that way.

80% nonwhite, 30% asian. they promote fuel conservation and dependence on fossil fuel. it's going to be harmful to the communities of color. the naacp is a subsidiary of the company. it's the weaponize philanthropy that doles out millions every year in the community to nonprofit groups, churches,

parks and recreation programs and schools. doesn't want to pay its fair share of taxes that does that to win the hearts and minds and people who otherwise it is in the downwind to be standing up for and fighting for and demanding the workplace conditions and higher standards of community health and more environmental protection. it's been effective in putting measures designed to address climate change by targeting the corporate democrats, black and latino, lavishing campaignlavisc contributions and the key legislation that we need.

i appreciate that you are trying to create a dialogue between the environmentalistenvironmentalist you agree that the overarching context of this conversation for the convenient mythology about the renewable fuel standard being founded on the premise that there is a sustainable pat. of ethanol. we ended up with the depletion collapsing because of the algae strains. from the soybean production that

is driven by the agricultural avocation.th it's about the failure of the renewable fuel policy and the national arms of those organizations. isn't it time that you agree that they owe the environmentalists and apologyst for that experiment and do youie also believe we need to recognize that sustainable ethanol is a mythology and was a product of the bipartisan acquiescence of people like tom harkin, bob dole.

at the farm lobbthe farm lobby l part of that -- >> we only have a few momentst v that -- >> i think that you are misunderstanding with my last book. there were two chapters on biofuel and was clear that corn ethanol is a bad idea and as far as i know they've nevers supported corn ethanol. if we could have made a cellulosic ethanol or other pathways we may still make those work it might look different but, certainly we are in complete agreement with you. to the degree that we are spending it should be in support of the practices like those that

take the nitrogen op. >> we have time for one more question. >> [inaudible] have you noticed any of the farmers and ranchers using the benefits -- >> the economic benefits it can be a rough transition but just in kansas i talk about this extreme they have been dealing with and how the conventional

yields have gone with the weather so it gives a greater security. they do one tractor pass instead of high, they had far less. the case is becoming 20%. >> i just want to know about the future but how about when you have the government making decisions against it.

my son is the managing editor of the sierra club and spends hours and hours writing articles and will walk on thursday and washington and i wonder are we going to have some results because of all these efforts?ne .. piece of advice everyone can walk away this earth day weekend, march for science weekend, los angeles book time festival weekend, if they want to do something on the big picture to keep the planet in tact what would that one thing be? we will start with steve. >> it will take me a minute. >> lee, we will start with you. >> i would say vote for your dollars. people ask me all the time how